A method for producing an alkyl- or alkenyl-substituted compound, an industrially important key compound, by an addition reaction to an unsaturated compound that involves carbon-carbon bond formation due to regioselective activation of a carbon-hydrogen bond is an excellent method with an atom efficiently of 100% that eliminates the need for prior activation of substrates, and that theoretically produces no by-products.
A method for producing such key compounds through the above route using a homogeneous complex catalyst containing metal such as ruthenium, palladium, or cobalt, is known (for example, Non-patent Literature 2 to 13). However, there are practical problems with the use of homogeneous complex catalysts, such as: 1) the catalyst production process is complicated, resulting in high environmental burden and high costs; 2) it is difficult to separate/recover and recycle the catalysts, which poses a problem of contamination of products by metals; and 3) in general, homogeneous complex catalysts are chemically and thermally unstable, and thus difficult to handle.
A production method that uses a solid catalyst is proposed, for example, in Patent Literature 1 and Non-patent Literature 1 to address the above problems. Although problems 1) to 3) described above, which are caused when homogeneous complex catalysts are used, can be solved by the methods of Patent Literature 1 and Non-patent Literature 1, there are problems such that the unsaturated compound that undergoes addition is limited to vinylsilane having at least one alkoxy group, and that the catalyst easily loses activity when recycled. For practical use in addition to such problems, catalytic activity must be further improved.